


The World Stops (The And You Return? Remix)

by navaan



Category: Marvel (Comics), Marvel 616
Genre: Angst, Dreams vs. Reality, Fever, Hurt Tony Stark, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Civil War (Marvel), Remix, Rescue, Secret Invasion (Marvel), Sharing Body Heat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-19
Updated: 2019-02-19
Packaged: 2019-10-21 04:03:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,256
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17635673
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/navaan/pseuds/navaan
Summary: DuringSecret Invasion, Tony's about to die in the ice not far from where they laid Steve's body to rest. That's why this ghost he sees can't be Steve.





	The World Stops (The And You Return? Remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [unsaid](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17467448) by [msermesth](https://archiveofourown.org/users/msermesth/pseuds/msermesth). 



> This was written as part of the Cap-IronMan Art/Fic Chain 2019.  
> It remixes [unsaid](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17467448) (MCU, T, 907 words) by **msermesth** and was in turn remixed into [Snow was Falling [Art]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17670383) (Ambiguous, G, Art) by **Cachette**.

“You have nowhere to run to, Stark,” Jessica Drew's voice sang sweetly over the official SHIELD channel, sounding nothing like her usual self. “The virus is eating through your precious Extremis code and will render you and the armor immobile in minutes.”

Tony kept himself from hissing. He knew, of course. The vile infection was spreading, and it crawled through him Veranke – and it was Queen Veranke and _not_ Spider-Woman speaking – had been stringing them all along towards this ending and Tony, swept up in the repercussions of the Superhero Registration Act and a resulting superhero war, had fallen for it. Despite all he'd done, it hadn't been enough to protect anything or anyone. 

Steve was dead. 

And Tony had let himself be been played.

“You were my greatest worry,” the Skrull queen said and sounded more like Jessica than before. “Had to keep you occupied and distracted, but now you're too much of a liability, Tony. I had hoped to infect your systems and keep you on the Helicarrier until this was over. Now that you broke free before we could lock you in, you'll have to suffer the consequences. You won't get far and... oh. A shame really. I'm sure we could have made use of you. Now I can only make sure you're not around to interfere. You're going to a cold grave.”

Extremis threw up a whole stream of data that ran in red streams of warnings in front of Tony's eyes. He gasped with the pain. It felt like the sudden spike of a migraine – like a knife hammered into his temple to cause the most possible pain before he expired. 

_[[Repulsors failing,]]_ the armor whispered through the silent screaming of Extremis. 

“No kidding,” he whispered back and only realized he'd spoken out loud when Veranke laughed. The inappropriately merry sound of bells accompanied the lurch in his stomach when suddenly he found himself in free fall over the endless white of the Arctic.

“Goodbye, Director Stark. If there's something left of you by the end of this, we'll come for you to let you see the new world we're creating.”

Even falling – the earth rushing up to meet him while Extremis tried to get the armor back online, his head screaming at him to stop fighting – he knew it wouldn't matter.

He'd messed up one too many times.

The futurist had failed to realize all his predictions and projections had been manipulated from the start. Skrulls had been among humans, among friends and enemies, from the very beginning. And Tony had allowed them to divide and conquer through political machinations and cunningly direted conflict.

 _[[Danger]]_ , the armor warned as if he wasn't aware. Extremis readily provided him with all the information on the Arctic landscape beneath him. Snow, ice, more ice. He would crash right into it and if he was lucky break his neck on impact. _[[Chance of survival less than 17.445%]]_

Faltering Extremis would not bring him back from that. 

_[[2 seconds to impact.]]_

Coordinates sprang up, showing him exactly where he would go down in the ice.

Somewhere close-by they had laid Steve to rest. His real, final rest. They'd put the withered body down where once the Avengers had pulled a vibrant, living and breathing legend from the ice.

And Tony had let him die.

Even through the pain, through the armor trying to reboot, Extremis trying to crush the virus, the guilt was what knocked the last bit of breath out of him. Then the armor crashed into the ice, the impact jolting Tony's limbs inside the Iron Man. Water gurgled, ice fell after him into the crater he'd made. The last bit of information the armor gave him was: _[[Life support at 1%.]]_ Then it died, leaving him to scramble up on his own. But the ice crushed him, caught him effectively like a freezing mouse trap before he had even found half his bearings.

Extremis screamed at him one final time, losing the fight for control.

He screamed into the helmet, sure it would recede and vanish any moment now, leaving him to suffocate in the cold walls forming around him.

Nothing happened.

He would be stuck here to freeze instead.

 _I deserve it_ , he thought, still fighting to dig upward, not sure he. _I'll join you, Steve. I had hoped to make a difference before I did, but here I come..._

Then Extremis failed – and took Tony down into oblivion with it.

* * *

He drifted in and out. His head never stopped hurting. Breathing got harder. The cold had started to tingle in his fingers and toes, settling into his limbs like lead. He couldn't move them; the armor must have frozen in place. 

_Perhaps I'm dead already_ , he thought, the rushing of blood in his ears mingling with the gurgling sound of melting and freezing water around him. _Is this what it was like for you, Steve? The first time?_

He must have blacked out again. His eyes snapped open to darkness and the sounds of the ice shifting. The sounds lured him back to sleep. His eyes were drooping, everything, sounds, heartbeat, breathing, time – everything bled together.

“34-44-54-64,” a voice seemed to murmur. “Open, damn it!”

In his tired, aching brain a memory stirred. Only one person had that override. _Steve_.

Steve was dead though.

He must have fallen into unconsciousness again because he snapped awake again when his mask got ripped off. 

Steve leaned over him.

But Steve was dead.

“Are you coming to get me?” Tony whispered, words slurred.

“You bet, I am,” the specter huffed and pulled at him. His armor was too heavy for a man, but not-Steve managed to move him.

It was a dream, of course, although dreams in his experience hurt less. Ad this one hurt – dream-nightmare of the man he'd lost, who was resting in this very same ice somewhere not far from here. 

Tony was floating. His hands and feet were killing him. Bitter cold, searing hot... The dream became unbearable with snowflakes sealing his hot tears like a second skin to his cheeks. An icy wind stung him as if it was scalding hot water. The armor had opened.

Steve had managed to tear of the mask.

“Stay with me,” he said, another sign of it being a dream.

“I'm... o... way.”

“What was that, Tony? What did you say?”

Tony tried to focus on the voice, wondering if this shadow was his guide to the underworld. Would Steve want him to come and join him or was this his dying mind trying to convince him to give up?

The whiteout of the world around him slipped away, ebbed and flowed. He felt himself rocked gently, up and down, and finally gave in to the cold while thick darkness and never-ending whiteness bleed together into one impenetrable shell that held him in its clutches.

* * *

Tony broke through the surface of the haze, and the world of cold had been replaced by terrible heat. Blood was rushing into his cheeks. His skin tingled and itched painfully. The migraine that filled the void where Extremis should be whispering made it hard to think.

He was on a cot. The strange half-dream still lingered painfully.

The ghost of Steve sat in a chair to Tony's left, elbows propped against his legs while he watched Tony.

He looked real, like a living breathing man. Attractive as Steve had been before his gruesome death. Seeing his sweet face stirred hope in Tony's heart even now – even with the lingering memory of Steve's blood-soaked chest as he lay dying on courthouse steps, of his withered corpse on a cot in a SHIELD morgue. 

“Steve,” Tony whispered, surprised he had a voice, wasn't just an empty dying shell. “I missed you.”

“I wish I had known that before,” Steve replied in a steady voice. He looked like someone who had lost his way or who didn't know why he was here. 

_Why is he here? To haunt me? To get me?_ Tony wondered, in the feverish haze forgetting Steve wasn't here at all. “Missed you so much.”

The fever crept in on him, making it hard to focus on thought or understanding. His head hurt – _really, really hurt_. He could be excused to not have noticed Steve's harrowed looks, or the way he shivered.

This time it took a while before his mouth managed to form the words: “Cold?”

“Are you cold?” Steve was on his feet immediately, walking over. 

Fingers brushed the hair away from his forehead, feeling his temperature. “You,” Tony tried to clarify, ready to argue with a ghost if he had to.

“It'll take a while until the generator has warmed the place,” Steve said.

“Lie with me,” Tony suggested, sure he was still caught in his icy grave, finding his last rest in this place that had haunted Steve's nightmares. 

The ghost's pale face hovered over him with an expression of worried discomfort. “That's a bad idea.”

Tony's alright with that. If it were real, it _would_ be a bad idea. “I'm sorry,” he whispered. “I'm so sorry, Steve.”

Hot tears ran down Tony's cheeks, and he found himself unable to stop them. They hurt, made his head worse.

“Shh, shh,” Steve muttered, and he pushed the blankets up. Tony hadn't realized that he was wearing nothing but the gold sheath of the underarmor until Steve pushed his boots off and slipped under the covers with him. They shifted and rearranged on the narrow cot, Tony stunned into silence by the sensation breaking into the numbness.

This felt real. But all his nightmares were real. Steve was dead.

Steve's arms settled around Tony's mid-section. He settled down, pressing along the length of Tony's body, breathing into the soft hairs at Tony's neck. 

“Warm,” Steve murmured. 

Tony's fingers tingled, life slowly flowing back. It felt _too_ real now. But Steve would never hold him like this. Why would he, when the last time they'd seen each other face to face they'd been separated by iron bars and bruises at Tony's throat the only reminder of how close Steve had come to killing him.

“It's gonna be alright, Tony,” the dream-nightmare Steve whispered.

“I'm still in the ice,” Tony disagreed. “Was it like this for you?”

Arms pulled him closer. “I got you. I found you, and I pulled you out. The way the Avengers pulled me out.” The voice paused. The sensation of feeling the words breathed against his skin fell away, allowing him to grasp at the dream. “Not many people wake up from being frozen,” Steve whispers. “We have that in common now.”

“You're dead,” Tony whispered to remind himself of what the ghost must know.

But fingers lacing with his felt too real. “Was dead. Back from the dead twice now. God I hate this cold. Less lonely this time out here in the ice, though. Better the second time around.” It sounded like a wry joke.

A rush of raw grief, fresh as it had been on that first day, welled up in Tony's chest. He sobbed. 

Steve's fingers started brushing his soothingly. 

A sliver of understanding solidified. This all felt too real for a dream – the hurt, the pain, the grief, the cold and heat and touch. “I can't do this without you anymore,” he sobbed, not sure how he was to deal with this when he ultimately woke and found that Steve was still dead. “Sometimes, I don’t know what to do without you,” Tony whispered, and it hurt to admit it, because he knew all the terrible things he had done were all for nothing. He'd lost everything.

“I'm right here,” Steve whispered. “I got you. You rest. Get better. And then we fight back. Together this time.”

He wanted that so badly to be true. “Don't promise,” he sobbed. 

Steve's fingers squeezed his. “Rest. We'll talk when you're better.”

Pain, grief, and love – emotions Tony had battled and hidden for  
too long all threatened to overwhelm him now when his body had already failed him. He was ready to give up, let himself be pulled into a warm embrace and dream of sleeping here with Steve.

Even if it meant oblivion.

“Don't leave. Take me with you.”

“I'll be there when you wake,” Steve promised, earnest as he had been in life. “I'm here. You got me.”

“You can’t promise that.” 

“I should have promised before,” Steve disagreed. “Before the fighting. Before you decided to make all your decisions without me. See where it got us. I'll be here. I'll stay with you. I missed you too. I'm never leaving you again whatever stupid thing you do. I'll stop you before you go to far and you'll keep me on track.”

 _Would Steve really tell him this outside of this dream? In the real world?_

“You can’t promise that. You're not here.” He whispered it into the scruff of Steve’s neck, wondering why all this feels real. 

“I’m not promising anything. I'm stating facts. Now sleep, rest. When you're ready we're fighting Skrulls. We owe that much to each other. You owe me, Tony. I'm here. Now you see to it that you stay with me.”

He nodded.

When he woke up – if he woke –, he'd have to face reality whatever it was. 

He fell asleep, feeling warm, not minding the pain as much, cradling his grief. All the while Steve's thumb stroked along his fingers, a little piece of dream-reality that wouldn't be denied.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Snow was falling [Art]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17670383) by [Cachette](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cachette/pseuds/Cachette)




End file.
